Laurence Parisot biography

50 year-old Laurence Parisot hasn't just come out of nowhere. As the heiress to a large furnishing company, she attended Sciences Po (a highly selective Parisian university) to study politics and law, before directly entering the highest circles of politics. At just 26, she became the director of a public opinion organization.

She's often criticized for getting to where she is because of her large inheritance, rather than her own abilities. But during the leadership election for MEDEF, which is made up of almost 750,000 businessmen and women, she defied critics and nay-sayers by being elected.

Passion in life Few people know about Laurence's private life. However, there is one passion in her life that she's open about: she's a big admirer and avid collector of surrealist art. She admits that her passion is fairly extreme. But Laurence is like that: she's always loved challenges. That's perhaps why, at the age of five, she went water skiing for the first time and at the age of seven, she climbed aboard a motorbiike!